The two composers who came from different traditions in Asia and Europe published their commissioned compositions for the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven; Tan Dun (*1957) and Max Richter (*1966). Musical composition reflects aesthetic values of composers at any time e.g. the antagonism between absolute instrumental music of Johannes Brahms and opera world of Richard Wagner regarding their representativeness in the evolutionary history of German music or contrasting developments of sonate form in the Symphonies by Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius.
Today, technology of digital/electronical sound production enabled a wide range of musical expression including contemporary modern music. On actual situation in 21st century with problems of social injustice, conflicts of different people’s groups, environmental pollution etc. what should the music create a visionary world view in its artistic field? Regarding various artistic projects e.g. a nature protection project titled "Beethoven Pastoral Project" by Beethoven Jubiläum Gesellschaft and "The Diabelli Project" by Deutsche Grammophon, this dissertation researches not only the musical compositions of Tan and Richter, but also their underlying conceptual orientations which might be based on their Asian/European ethnic roots. An ethnographic research method is to trace their implicit musical characteristics and actualize their unconscious perceptions of music.
How do they locate Beethoven in their ethnic identities and what do they express in music in the early 21st century with respect to Beethoven as a role model for evolutionary music?
This research was reported as a project part of the seminar "Bonn 2020/21. Ethnographie eines Komponistenjubiläums" in the Module "M7 Forschendes Lernen" on 27th January 2021.
The project dissertation was supplemented and submitted in March 2021 (special thanks to sheet music sample courtesy of Universal Music Publishing Classical and Decca Publishing).
Raku Sato
29.03.2021 (introduction of the dissertation)
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